Nearly 9 million viewers watched Chelsea's 1-0 win over Barcelona in their Uefa Champions League semi-final first leg on Wednesday night, playing BBC1's The Apprentice off the park.

Champions League Live averaged 7.1 million viewers, a 29.6% share of the audience, between 7.30pm and 10pm on ITV1 on Wednesday, with a five-minute peak of 8.9 million.

Live coverage of the match itself, which kicked off at 7.45pm, averaged 8 million viewers over about two hours.

BBC1's The Apprentice, which had the best audience of the series so far last week, slipped back to 6.1 million, a 23.9% share, between 9pm and 10pm.

ITV1's football also beat BBC1 drama Waterloo Road, which had 4.4 million viewers, an 18.4% share, between 8pm and 9pm.

Going, going, gone (still available on catch-up)

Channel 4 documentary Elizabeth Taylor: Auction of a Lifetime, about the auction of the star's jewellery collection, was watched by 2.1 million viewers (9.2%) between 9pm and 10.35pm.

The documentary beat BBC2's Divine Women, the second of a three-part look at the history of women in religion, which was watched by 800,000 viewers (3.3%) between 9pm and 10pm.

Divine Women was followed on BBC2 by spin-off The Apprentice: You're Fired, which had 2.4 million viewers, an 11.8% share, between 10pm and 10.30pm.

Channel 5's US drama NCIS was the network's most popular programme of the night with 1.8 million viewers (7.1%) between 9pm and 10pm.

The only way is Peter Andre

ITV2 topped a million viewers with a double helping of reality shows, one slightly more structured more than the other.

The second instalment of Peter Andre: My Life had 1.2 million viewers (4.6%) between 9pm and 10pm, followed by the second part of The Only Way Is Essex, watched by 1.15 million viewers (6.1%) between 10pm and 10.45pm.

They were the two most-watched programmes across multichannel services on Wednesday.

All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live, +1 (except for BBC and some other channels including Sky1) and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, or other – unless otherwise stated. Figures for BBC1, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 generally include ratings for their HD simulcast services, unless otherwise stated

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